Lightroom to Photoshop on iPad reduces image size

[EngineFD223]

Hello Adobe Community,

Was wondering if I could get some help and learn if what i'm experiencing is a bug or a limitation of the software.

I have photos within Lightroom Classic on my Desktop that are in a collection and synced to the Cloud. Those images are then accesed on my iPad Pro inside of Lightroom for iPad.

On my iPad inside of Lightroom the images size shows as 6000 x 4000. If I take that image from Lightroom on iPad and click on Edit in Photoshop, it then opens up the image in Photoshop for iPad. What I have noticed is that when I do that, the image size drastically changes. For one particular image, the image size on Photoshop for iPad was 2560 x 1707. 

Lightroom for iPad:

Photoshop for iPad:

I've tried a couple of different things to try and narrow this down. I went on my computer and took a RAW image and put it in the files app of my iPad. Then I opened up Photoshop for iPad and imported that one image. Within the image size dialogue box it showed the correct image size of 6000 x 4000.

Then I went into Lightroom for iPad and imported that same image. Within Lightroom it still showed 6000 x 4000. But once i clicked on Edit in Photoshop it changed to 2560 x 1707 within Photoshop for iPad.

I have spoken to two different technical support agents through Adobes chat. The first one told me that they were unable to reproduce what I had explained to them and had me delete Lightroom and Photoshop and reinstall them. I did that and it did not fix the issue. The second agent told me that it was expeced behavior and sent me THIS ADOBE DISCUSSION  that has nothing to do with the issue that I presented. 

Has anyone else experienced this issue? If so, were you able to fix it?

I'm running the following:

iPad OS 17.5

Lightroom for iPad ver. 9.3.0

Photoshop for iPad ver. 5.5.2

Thank you for any and all help, it is greatly appreciated.

[Sameer K]

Hey, @EngineFD223. Welcome to the Lightroom Community. I'll help you figure this out.

Images originally imported from Lightroom Classic get uploaded to the cloud as Smart Previews. This is expected behavior for images imported from Lightroom Classic.

You can click on the Cloud icon in Lightroom on the iPad to check the Local & Cloud Backup of the images in question. It'll be Local: Smart Preview & Cloud Backup: Smart Preview for images that came from Lightroom Classic.

Check the Other Sync FAQ's section here: https://adobe.ly/3Vwo9kX

You can import a RAW image in Lightroom on the iPad directly & ensure you have the Original under Local & send this image to Photoshop & it should open a full size raw file.

Also, Lightroom on the desktop uploads the full size raw images as backup to the cloud which can help you skip the Smart Previews.

Let me know if this helps. Thanks!
Sameer K

[Conrad_C]

One conclusion you can draw from Sameer K’s reply is that the assumption in the thread title is not correct. The problem is not because “Lightroom to Photoshop on iPad reduces image size.” The problem is not on the iPad at all. The problem actually occurs because the image was synced up by Lightroom Classic, and the long edge dimension limit for the Smart Preview it syncs up is the 2560 pixels you see on the long edge of what you got in Photoshop on iPad, and that limit cannot be changed.

So, a correct title for the thread would be “Lightroom Classic reduces image size when syncing to Lightroom photos in the cloud.” Which would be accurate, and is a known and documented limitation of Lightroom Classic.

In other words:

Lightroom on iPad to Photoshop on iPad = full pixel dimensions preserved.

Lightroom on desktop to Lightroom on iPad to Photoshop on iPad = full pixel dimensions preserved.

Lightroom Classic on desktop to Lightroom on iPad to Photoshop on iPad = Smart Preview uploaded by Lightroom Classic limits long edge to 2560 px, so that is all that Lightroom receives on iPad.